Le Barroux

I have procrastinated months in writing down my thoughts of my visit to my old village in Provence. There is almost a reluctance to do so, as if by putting the words down, I will bring to an end the almost dreamlike experience of revisiting the spot on this earth that is the most beautiful. For over 30 years, I have remembered this place, and talked about it to almost everyone who knows me. The small village on the Provençal hill, topped by a castle. So many times I have dreamed of it, and spoken to others, that it had taken on the unreal quality of a legend.

There have been many times in my life when I fondly remembered a place or experience as being idyllic and perfect, only to return and find it tawdry and lackluster. I halfway expected a repeat performance upon visiting Le Barroux. Certainly the village would be in disrepair, with half-ruined stone buildings, and the reek of rotten food in the alleyways.

In order to get to Le Barroux from Avignon, one must go through Carpentras. I had remembered it as being fairly straightforward. However, we circled the town helplessly for 3 or 4 times, trying to find either the center of town, or the road that led out of town, towards Le Barroux. In the first case, I had intended to stop the car, and give Sarah a look at the middle of Carpentras, which allegedly (and in memory) holds a wonderful marketplace, as well as a large church which used to have the status of a cathedral. Not to mention a synagogue (the area has historically had a large Jewish population). However, the center of town was impenetrable, and the streets around the outside were indecipherable. Finally we admitted defeat, and made our way toward Le Barroux, in a cold sweat.

The countryside was wonderful, as we drove through a plain filled with grapevines and olive groves, and once we had cleared the surroundings of Carpentras, we met very few other vehicles. I saw a sign for Le Barroux when we were about two kilometers out, then suddenly coming around a curve about one kilometer away from the village, we caught our first glimpse of it. It was an apparition from a fairy tale; a song from a medieval troubadour. Sarah’s first reaction was very gratifying. She insisted that we stop the car that very moment, so that she could get out and take multiple pictures.

We made our way up the hill and to Les Geraniums, where we had our hotel reservation. Checking in and stowing our bags hurriedly, we were set on making the most of what was left of the afternoon to explore the village.

We walked up the street past the house where my friend Marie-Ange had lived, toward the church, and the plaza in the middle of town. We met no one in the streets, and all the houses were shuttered. It was as if we were the only ones in town, save the guests at the hotel. The plaza was as I had remembered it, with the same fountain at which I had taken a picture of Gretl (the little girl I had looked after while I had been there in 1974). Gretl must be a woman of almost 40 now, and I certainly hope that she turned out better than the girl she had been. I snapped a shot of Sarah sitting at the fountain. That particular little girl had turned out well.

The church in the middle of town (Saint Jean Baptiste) was closed up, but I related to Sarah the story that I had heard – that inside the church was a tunnel that led down the hill, to an obscure location, which had been used during WWII by the Resistance, to escape the Germans.

Just off of the plaza was a street that held two houses of note to me. One had been the “upper house” where we had lived briefly. Ann, the American professor for whom I had worked, had created a furor in the town by painting the door with a deep red lacquer. Heaven knows what the color denoted to the people of the town at that time – perhaps a house of prostitution? Then – and now – all the doors in town were a dark brown, and the shutters were subdued shades of powder blue, violet, and off-white.

At the end of the street, on the corner, was the house I remembered as belonging to one Cristophe. He earned his livelihood by producing arts and crafts, which he sold to the tourists. Rumor had it that he was an escapee from a mental institution in Switzerland, who had taken refuge in this remote area of France. His affliction had been lycanthropy, which means that he thought he was a werewolf. I was never sure what happened to him during full moons, but I had a tendency to avoid taking solitary walks at night when I lived there.

The way to the castle was from that street. Walking through the beautiful maze of houses, I was in a dreamlike state, because everything was exactly as it had been years ago. The only thing that told me for sure I wasn’t dreaming was the fact that I was out of breath from walking up and down the streets of the town. There are no horizontal surfaces in Le Barroux, save the Place in the middle of town, as all the streets run up to the castle.

When we finally made it to the castle, we were at the chapel – Chapelle Nôtre Dame la Brune – which holds a noted black Madonna. The signage outside explains that there are about 20 black Madonnas in southern France, and their origin is rooted in Celtic tradition, and Greco-Roman mythology. Although the advent of Christianity in the region transformed these ladies into the Virgin Mary, previously these figures had represented fertility. When the Protestants (Huguenots) took Le Barroux in the 1500s, they cast the figure into the flames. But miraculously, she did not burn.

Walking around the chapel, we finally came to the overlook in front of the castle. This was where I had spent many hours looking down over the Plaine du Comtat in the evenings. It was a rare evening that I did not make my pilgrimage to the Castle, where I would look over the Plaine, up to Mt. Ventoux. Oftentimes I would feel just a bit homesick for my family back in the states, as it was the first time I had been away from home.

The rooftops of the village are the typical tile, which looks like it has been made from half of a clay pipe. Although the tiles are flared at bit, not perfectly cylindrical. Legend has it that the first of these tiles were molded on the thigh of a young woman. Oh, la la! Isn’t it just like the French to have a story like that?

Although on a fine, hot day, it is hard to believe that the severely cold wind known as the Mistral exists, it does wreak havoc on the countryside. Periodically it will blow from the north (off of the Alps), and rumor has it that it always blows in multiples of three days. During the time that I spent in Provence years ago, I found this to be true. Because of the Mistral, many free-standing houses to not have windows on the north side, especially if they are “mas de campagne,” or country houses, standing alone in the fields. Here in the village, it was not that much of a concern, but many roofs had stones on the tiles along the edges, to keep them from being blown away by the wind.

After spending some time exploring the castle and its surroundings, we made our way back down to the hotel to change for dinner. Les Geraniums, in changing management, had also morphed into a high-class restaurant. Previously, it had been a little inn, with a bar/restaurant that catered to the locals. The paysans would wander in after a day in the fields for their glass of pastis before going home for dinner. Now it draws its clientele from the surrounding countryside. It has an excellent wine list, and serves a very fine cuisine.

After dinner, we called it a night, and promised ourselves to explore the rest of the town the following morning, before proceeding to our other stops in the region. I fell asleep that night with a sense of closure, because I had come home. After years of talking to my family and friends about this marvelous place, I had at last managed to show it to one daughter, who had shared my sense of awe.